Conventionally, when anchorage-dependent cells are cultured in a vessel to which the cells are adhered, such as a Petri dish or a flask, almost all the operations have been performed manually. The cell culture operations are complicated and take time, and therefore require enormous personal costs. In addition, since the timings and the like for performing medium exchanges and subculture operations are determined based on experience of the operator, a difference in the survival rate occurs due to a difference in the degree of damage to cells, and thus a difference tends to occur in the state of the cells after subculture operations from operator to operator. Thus, for effecting cell culture in a stable manner at a low cost, a device for automatically performing cell culture operations has been studied and developed.
For example, PTL 1 proposes a cell culture device in which cultured cells are automatically collected to enable efficient subculture. PTL 2 proposes that risk of contamination in culture operations is reduced by using a cell culture device which includes plural culture dishes for culturing cells and a control means for transferring a cell fluid selectively to a certain culture dish.